‘Captain Phillips’ Trailer Shows the Softer Side of Somali Pirates

There’s a new trailer online for PaulGreengrass‘ CaptainPhillips, so if you’ve been feeling any urges to see Tom Hanks sport a wicked goatee and a somewhat-believable Southern accent (or you just want to see him face off against a band of Somali pirates), do yourself a favor and check it out.

This trailer and the previous one open more or less with the same footage (minus a shot and a line of dialogue here and there), but about halfway through, this new trailer veers off into uncharted territory. The rest of the footage is all based around Phillips’ relationship with the lead pirate, and their time together in the lifeboat where the hostage situation famously ended. Frankly, it’s exciting stuff. Every conversation has the potential to launch its characters into panicked violence, and the trailer’s last few moments tease the standoff’s end (even if some of the quicker cuts are a little incomprehensible). It doesn’t even seem to matter so much that this trailer walks us through entire story; something that’s become far too frequent nowadays.

Much of this is just a continuation of what we saw in that first trailer. Yet there’s one new element here that’s absolutely, 100% brand-new, and that’s the trailer’s sympathetic eye towards its lead pirate. Captain Phillips doesn’t portray him as a bloodthirsty agent of random violence. Instead, he’s just a guy whose hand was forced a long, long time ago. He’s not a pirate by choice. It’s his only life choice. Check it out after the break.

I’m sure once the film comes out, we’ll find out whether this is a true-to-life characterization, or just Greengrass’ attempt to keep things from being too one-sided.

Captain Phillips hits theaters on October 11, and stars Hanks as well as Catherine Keener. [Yahoo! Movies]

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